OU, Phillips 66 Collaboration Earns OU Engineer International Honor

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The American Chemical Society honored University of Oklahoma engineering professor Daniel Resasco, Ph.D., with the Exceptional Achievements in Catalysis award at a special symposium of the Catalysis Division during its Fall 2022 national meeting in Chicago. 

Resasco was recognized for advancing solutions for a lower-carbon future working closely with researchers at Phillips 66. Walter Alvarez, Ph.D., principal scientist at the Phillips 66 Research Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, led the nomination effort.

“The catalysis group at the University of Oklahoma and researchers at Phillips 66 have a long-term research collaboration focused on the development of an in-depth understanding of the chemical reactions of interest in the production of fuels,” Alvarez said. 

The collaboration covers a wide range of interconnected areas such as the analysis of the molecular structure of the reactants, detailed catalyst design and catalyst characterization, reaction kinetics and processes optimization, Alvarez says. 

Resasco’s work, though unseen by most consumers, is an essential part of the fuel industry. Investigating the interplay between reactants and active sites on the catalyst surface is crucial to understand and predict the behavior of materials under industrial conditions. 

“My research group combines synthesis, characterization, kinetics measurements, and theoretical computations to gain the level of understanding necessary to make these predictions,” Resasco said.

Resasco, a professor in the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, joined the OU faculty in 1993 and holds the inaugural Gallogly Chair of Engineering. He specializes in the study of catalysts and nanomaterials for commercial and industrial applications. He is the author of more than 300 publications, holds more than 40 industrial patents, and has received approximately 35,000 citations in scientific literature. He is the recipient of many national and international honors including the Anderson Catalysis Award from the Catalysis Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada, the Excellence in Catalysis Award by the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, and the Great Plains Catalysis Society Award. 

By Lorene A. Roberson, OU Gallogly College of Engineering






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